Local dairy takes an old-school approach to bottling milk

The Rosa Brothers dairy farm in Hanford has been milking about one thousand cows a day, for more than sixty years. But the family-owned farm is now getting into the business of bottling and selling its own product.

Noel Rosa said, "You always send a good quality product out to a big plant and you don't really know what happens with your milk, and you kind of don't have a real sense of accomplishment."

Dairy farmer Noel Rosa and his brother are opening up their very own creamery in Tulare, where milk from their farm will be processed and bottled for consumers interested in local, natural milk.

Rosa said, "As soon as the milk is harvested, within an hour after they're done being milked, we go over with our truck and we pick up however much milk the creamery needs for that day."

Once here, the milk is pasteurized and tested for bacteria, it is then put into glass bottles and placed in crates.

Martha Tenney said, "We're just crating them, putting the expiration date, which is 2 weeks since the time they were pasteurized, and then we're putting them into cold storage until we send them out to the wholesalers."

Glass bottles are used to insulate the freshness of the milk.

"Glass is the best medium for carrying milk," Rosa explained. "It doesn't pick up the plastic flavors, it keeps the milk tasting clean."

The milk also comes in three different flavors, strawberry, chocolate, and root beer. And the creamery also makes its own natural ice cream.

All these products will be available for purchase at the retail store in Tulare for consumers wanting to buy local.

Rosa added, "It's important to keep the dollars in our community, it's important to support each other with jobs."

Now for starters, the milk products will be in store shelves at local stores, like Best Buy Super Market, but the company hopes to expand to other retailers.